The 10 women gathered on yoga mats in a New Orleans suburb, the lights dimmed.

“I’d like to invite you to close your eyes,” instructor Stephanie Osborne said in a soothing voice from the front of the room. The only other noises were the hum of the air conditioner and the distant sounds of children playing in a nearby field.

For the next hour the women focused on various mindfulness exercises designed to help them deal with the stress of everyday life.

The six-week mindfulness program in Slidell, Louisiana, is the brainchild of Kentrell Jones, the executive director of East St. Tammany Habitat for Humanity, who was concerned about the health of her colleagues and others affected by Hurricane Ida, which ripped through this region east of New Orleans last year.

Participants meet for an hour once a week for six weeks beginning with the inaugural session this fall and plans for future sessions next year.

Prospective participants, who had to be living in the parish during Hurricane Ida, filled out a survey asking them questions such as whether they had struggled with lack of sleep or had problems paying bills or having to relocate since the hurricane. They don’t have to be clients of Habitat for Humanity’s housing programs, although some are.

Jones said the organization’s clients have struggled with being displaced from their homes, trying to complete repairs while dealing with insurance and living through another hurricane season in which the calendar is filled with anniversaries of previous storms and everyone keeps an eye glued to the television for weather alerts.

One family she works with had to move to Mississippi in the aftermath of Ida while their tree-damaged home was repaired. Just as the repairs were completed, the husband died of a heart attack.

“You have people that are stressed,” she emphasized.

The program hits on a growing concern — the long-term stress that extreme weather events such as hurricanes can take on the people who live through them. People who work in hurricane-affected areas often talk about the stress the long rebuilding process can take on people and the anxiety stirred up during hurricane season.

In late August, with anniversaries of Hurricanes Katrina and Ida looming, the New Orleans emergency preparedness social media feed reminded residents of something called the “anniversary effect,” which might trigger feelings of depression or PTSD. After Hurricane Ian hit Florida in September, two men in their 70s took their own lives after seeing their losses.

In the north shore region of Louisiana, local mental health officials note that hurricanes are often followed by increased suicides in ensuing years. Nick Richard, who heads the local branch of the National Alliance on Mental Health, said that following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina suicides climbed by 46% in 2007. Other events such as 2008’s Hurricane Gustav or the 2016 floods have shown similar jumps.

Research also suggests extreme weather events such as hurricanes can have long-term health effects on survivors. A Tulane University study found hospital admissions for heart attacks were three times higher after Katrina than before the storm.

Another study published earlier this year looked at mortality rates for counties that experienced a tropical cyclone over a 30-year period, from 1988 to 2018. The research found there were increases for certain types of deaths, including cardiovascular and respiratory disease in the six months after landfall — suggesting death tolls often tabulated in the initial weeks after a storm might be undercounted.

The study’s lead author, Robbie Parks, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, said while major hurricanes such as this year’s Ian get a lot of attention, his research suggested repeated strikes with weaker cyclones also take a toll. He’s concerned that the full extent of events like hurricanes aren’t being captured. It’s an “incredible challenge” just counting the dead after a hurricane, he said.

“What if someone has a heart attack in the week after a hurricane?” he said. “Then you’re getting into subjective territory.”

One of the women taking part in the inaugural meditation course is Louise Mace of Slidell. She had just opened her shop selling home decor goods when Katrina wiped it out in 2005. Then, last year, Hurricane Ida’s winds and a tornado damaged her roof; she’s been battling with her insurance carrier ever since as she lives in a camper.

The stress has taken a toll on Mace’s health with her blood pressure jumping up and down. Her doctor recommended meditation and then she ran into Jones, who recruited her for the course. Mace said it has helped her learn techniques to deal with the stress and to know she’s not alone.

“You think you’re dealing. You think you’re fine. You’re not. Listening to other people made it better,” Mace said.

The program is funded by the Northshore Community Foundation. Susan Bonnett, the foundation’s president and CEO, says in the immediate aftermath of events like hurricanes the foundation would receive funding requests around traditional post-disaster needs — tarps for damaged roofs, for example.

But the foundation also noticed funding requests for mental health services months after the storm. At the same time, there was a dearth of mental health services in the region so the organization started looking for creative ways like Kentrell’s mindfulness proposal to address the problems they knew would build after events like Ida.

The mindfulness classes are designed to build skills that the participants can use to address any stresses in their lives, whether those are weather-related or something else like a conflict with a family member.

Instructor Stephanie Osborne says people don’t always realize the mental strain that extreme weather can cause.

Take the lead-up to Hurricane Ian, for example, when it wasn’t yet clear the storm was going to hit Florida and not Louisiana. Some of the women gathered outside the community room after the class and talked about whether they needed to book a hotel room in Baton Rouge or get gas for the generator. All of that buildup takes a toll, Osborne said.

“There is an anxiety, a stress around that, especially for folks who are struggling financially,” she said. And if people aren’t aware of how much anxiety they’re holding inside, it can affect things like their health or their jobs: “It starts spilling out in other ways.” 

 
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As Ugandan farmer Bonaventura Senyonga prepares to bury his grandson, age-old traditions are forgotten and fear hangs in the air while a government medical team prepares the body for the funeral — the latest victim of Ebola in the East African nation.

Bidding the dead goodbye is rarely a quiet affair in Uganda, where the bereaved seek solace in the embrace of community members who converge on their homes to mourn the loss together.

Not this time.

Instead, 80-year-old Senyonga is accompanied by just a handful of relatives as he digs a grave on the family’s ancestral land, surrounded by banana trees.

“At first we thought it was a joke or witchcraft but when we started seeing bodies, we realized this is real, and that Ebola can kill,” Senyonga told AFP.

His 30-year-old grandson Ibrahim Kyeyune was a father of two girls and worked as a motorcycle mechanic in central Kassanda district, which together with neighboring Mubende is at the epicenter of Uganda’s Ebola crisis.

Both districts have been under a lockdown since mid-October, with a dawn-to-dusk curfew, a ban on personal travel and public places shuttered.

The reappearance of the virus after three years has sparked fear in Uganda, with cases now reported in the capital, Kampala, as the highly contagious disease makes its way through the country of 47 million people.

In all, 53 people have died, including children, out of more than 135 cases, according to the latest Ugandan health ministry figures.

‘Ebola has shocked us’

In Kassanda’s impoverished Kasazi B village, everyone is afraid, says Yoronemu Nakumanyanga, Kyeyune’s uncle.

“Ebola has shocked us beyond what we imagined. We see and feel death every day,” he told AFP at his nephew’s gravesite.

“I know when the body finally arrives, people in the neighborhood will start running away, thinking Ebola virus spreads through the air,” he said.

Ebola is not airborne — it spreads through bodily fluids, with common symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhea.

But misinformation remains rife and poses a major challenge.

In some cases, victims’ relatives have exhumed their bodies after medically supervised burials to perform traditional rituals, triggering a spike in infections.

In other instances, patients have sought traditional healers for help instead of going to a health facility — a worrying trend that prompted President Yoweri Museveni last month to order traditional healers to stop treating sick people.

“We have embraced the fight against Ebola and complied with President Museveni’s directive to close our shrines for the time being,” said Wilson Akulirewo Kyeya, a leader of the traditional herbalists in Kassanda.

‘I saw them die’

The authorities are trying to expand rural health facilities, installing isolation and treatment tents inside villages so communities can access medical attention quickly.

But fear of Ebola runs deep.

Brian Bright Ndawula, a 42-year-old trader from Mubende, was the sole survivor among four family members who were diagnosed with the disease, losing his wife, his aunt and his 4-year-old son.

“When we were advised to go to hospital to have an Ebola test, we feared going into isolation … and being detained,” he told AFP.

But when their condition worsened and the doctor treating them at the private clinic also began showing symptoms, he realized they had contracted the dreaded virus.

“I saw them die and knew I was next, but God intervened and saved my life,” he said, consumed by regret over his decision to delay getting tested.

“My wife, child and aunt would be alive, had we approached the Ebola team early enough.”

‘Greatest hour of need’

Today, survivors like Ndawula have emerged as a powerful weapon in Uganda’s fight against Ebola, sharing their experiences as a cautionary tale but also as a reminder that patients can survive if they receive early treatment.

Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng urged recovered patients in Mubende to spread the message that “whoever shows signs of Ebola should not run away from medical workers but instead run towards them, because if you run away with Ebola, it will kill you.”

It is an undertaking many in this community have taken to heart.

Dr. Hadson Kunsa, who contracted the disease while treating Ebola patients, told AFP he was terrified when he received his diagnosis.

“I pleaded to God to give me a second chance and told God I will leave Mubende after recovery,” he said.

But he explained he could not bring himself to do it.

“I will not leave Mubende and betray these people at the greatest hour of need.”
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The U.N. climate talks in Egypt have reached the halfway mark, with negotiators still working on draft agreements before ministers arrive next week to push for a substantial deal to fight climate change.

The two-week meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh started with strong appeals from world leaders for greater efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and help poor nations cope with global warming.

Scientists say the amount of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere needs to be halved by 2030 to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord. The 2015 pact set a target of ideally limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century but left it up to countries to decide how they want to do so.

Here is a look at the main issues on the table at the COP27 talks:

What about the U.S. and China?

The top U.S. negotiator suggested that a planned meeting Monday between U.S. President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping of China on the sideline of the Group of 20 meeting in Bali could also provide an important signal for the climate talks as they go into the home stretch.

With impacts from climate change being felt across the globe, there’s been a push for rich polluters to donate more cash to help developing countries shift to clean energy and adapt to global warming; increasingly there are also calls for compensation to pay for climate-related losses.

China is the biggest polluter by far right now, but the U.S. has the most historical pollution over time.

Keeping cool

A group of major emerging countries that includes oil-and-gas exporting nations has pushed back against explicit references to keeping the target of limiting global warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Egypt, which is chairing the talks, convened a three-hour meeting Saturday in which the issue was raised several times.

“1.5 is a substantive issue,” said Wael Aboulmagd, a senior Egyptian negotiator, adding it was “not just China” which had raised questions about the language used to refer to the target. Still, he was hopeful of finding a way of securing a “maximum possible advance” on reducing emissions by the meeting’s close.

Cutting emissions

Negotiators are trying to put together a mitigation program that would capture the different measures countries have committed to in order to reduce emissions, including for specific sectors like energy and transport. Many of these pledges are not formally part of the U.N. process, meaning they cannot easily be scrutinized at the annual meeting. A draft agreement circulated early Saturday showed large sections were still unresolved. Some countries want the plan to be valid only for one year, while others say a longer-term roadmap is needed. Expect fireworks in the days ahead.

US-China relations

While all countries are equal at the U.N. meeting, in practice little gets done without the approval of the world’s two biggest emitters, China and the United States. Beijing canceled formal dialogue on climate following Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and relations have been frosty since. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said Saturday that he had held only informal discussions with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua lately.

“I think we’re both waiting to see how things go with the G-20 and hopefully we can return,” he told reporters.

Shunning fossil fuels

Last year’s meeting almost collapsed over a demand for the final agreement to state that coal should be phased out. In the end, countries agreed on several loopholes, and there are concerns among climate activists that negotiators from nations that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels might try to roll back previous commitments.

Money matters

Rich countries have fallen short on a pledge to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 in climate financing for poor nations. This has opened a rift of distrust that negotiators are hoping to close with fresh pledges. But needs are growing, and a new, higher target needs to be set from 2025 onward.

Aminath Shauna, the environment minister of the Maldives, said her island nation conservatively estimates that it will need $8 billion for coastal adaptation. And even that may not be enough, if sea levels rise too much.

“It is very disheartening to see that it may be too late for the Maldives, but we still need to address (the issue of finance),” she said.

Compensation

The subject of climate compensation was once considered taboo because of concerns from rich countries that they might be on the hook for vast sums. But intense pressure from developing countries forced the issue of “loss and damage” onto the formal agenda at the talks for the first time this year. Whether there will be a deal to promote further technical work or the creation of an actual fund remains to be seen.

John Kerry said the United States is hopeful of getting an agreement “before 2024” but suggested this might not come to pass in Egypt. But he made it clear where the U.S. red line lies for Washington: “The United States and many other countries will not establish some … legal structure that is a tied to compensation or liability.” That doesn’t mean money won’t flow, eventually. But it might be branded as aid, tied into existing funds and require contributions from all major emitters if it’s to pass.

More donors

One way to raise additional cash and resolve the thorny issue of polluter payment would be for those countries that have seen an economic boom in the past three decades to step up. The focus is chiefly on China, the world’s biggest emitter, but others could be asked to open their purses too.

Side deals

Last year’s meeting saw the signing of a raft of agreements that weren’t formally part of the talks. Some have also been unveiled in Egypt, though hopes for a series of announcements on Just Transition Partnerships — where developed countries help poorer nations wean themselves off fossil fuels — aren’t likely to bear fruit until after COP27.

Hope until the end

Jennifer Morgan, a former head of Greenpeace who recently became Germany’s climate envoy, called the talks this year challenging.

“But I can promise you we will be working until the very last second to ensure that we can reach an ambitious and equitable outcome,” she said. “We are reaching for the stars while keeping our feet on the ground.” 
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As Uganda struggled to control the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, Health Ministry officials said Friday the cases are gradually stabilizing. This comes after media reports that some leaked documents show the disease could claim 500 lives by next April. The country has recorded 137 Ebola cases and 54 deaths since the outbreak began in September.

Ugandan Health Ministry officials have gone on the defense in the face of reports that the deadly Ebola Sudan virus disease is spiraling out of control.

Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, Uganda’s health minister, told reporters Friday that the country’s cases are gradually stabilizing, as shown by trends in the last week.

An article in the British daily newspaper, The Telegraph, this week reported that leaked donor documents said the ministry had projected 250 deaths by the end of this year and 500 Ebola deaths by next April.

Aceng said the outbreak is being monitored closely and cases are being followed. She said cases in Kampala and other areas are under quarantine, apart from Kasanda district, which has made it easy for authorities to control the epidemic.

The government has placed the two districts most affected by the Ebola outbreak — Kasanda and Mubende — under quarantine for another 21 days, although Mubende is not reporting new cases. The government also is ordering an early closure of primary schools countrywide.

“We have never done any modeling for this Ebola outbreak. Not Ministry of Health, not the scientific advisory committee, not the National Planning Authority. So that modeling was done by them., said Aceng, referring to the newspaper. “In addition, the two districts of Mubende and Kasanda are under quarantine. It does not mean that we are 100 percent sure that no case will pop up anywhere.”

During the press conference, WHO Country Representative Yonas Tegen described the projected Ebola death case numbers as”dramatic.”

Tegen said in the last week there have been five confirmed cases and a sharp decrease in the last three weeks. Tegen said he was surprised to see some wrong details claimed to have been taken from the WHO.

“That’s not telling us a doomsday scenario. Even in normal cases,” said Tegen. “For example, WHO puts the viral hemorrhagic kits in various places. We keep supplies enough to manage 300, 400, 500 patients. Does that mean that the disease is there? No, it is getting prepared. I would assure you that also WHO didn’t do modeling. I was surprised to see a graph; our graphs are not done like that.”

Local reports also indicate there is a conflict brewing between the minister and donors over how funds to fight Ebola are being managed.

At a press conference last week, U.S. Ambassador Natali Brown said since the outbreak was declared in Uganda on September 20, the United States had channeled more than $22.3 million through implementing partners to support the government of Uganda-led Ebola response with $6 million available to the Health Ministry. She was quick to urge the proper use of the funds.

 

“We also, you know, appeal to everyone in government and everyone involved to really do what they can, and to clamp down on corruption,” said Brown. “This costs everyone when these funds are leaking out and ending up in someone’s pockets instead of reaching the communities that need the support and resources.”

There is still no proof from scientists on the actual cause of the current Ebola Sudan virus disease outbreak. Last month, the Health Ministry indicated it had caught 189 bats and obtained 320 samples to ascertain the actual cause of the Ebola virus. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention country director, Dr Lisa Nelson, said at the press conference that tests are ongoing.

“We are interested in understanding the source of this outbreak. Why Mubende and Kassanda?” asked Nelson. “This will help us in terms of preventing future outbreaks and understanding who is at risk based on the environment and based on the reservoir. What is the source of this very deadly infection? We do know and there have been studies in the past that there are bats who harbor filoviruses including the Marburg virus.”

Uganda acknowledged the disease had started claiming lives in August.

Health officials report 16 admitted cases, 65 recoveries reported, and 4,147 contacts listed for follow-up — all part of the 137 cumulative cases.
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On a beach in Senegal with so much plastic trash that much of the sand is covered, one man is trying to raise awareness about the dangers of plastics — by wearing many of the bags, cups and other junk that might just as soon be part of trash piles. 

Environmental activist Modou Fall, who many simply call “Plastic Man,” wears his uniform — “it’s not a costume,” he emphasizes — while telling anybody who will listen about the problems of plastics. As he walks, strands and chunks of plastic dangle from his arms and legs, rustling in the wind while some drags on the ground. On Fall’s chest, poking out from the plastics, is a sign in French that says, “No to plastic bags.” 

A former soldier, the 49-year-old father of three children says that plastic pollution, often excessive from people who chuck things wherever without a second thought, is an ecological disaster. 

“It’s a poison for health, for the ocean, for the population,” he said. 

On this recent day, Fall traverses Yarakh Beach in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. But it could have been any number of other places: Fall has taken his message national, visiting cities across the west African country for years. In 2011, during World Environment Day, he started as Plastic Man. 

He founded an environmental association, called Clean Senegal, that raises awareness via education campaigns and encourages reuse and recycling. 

As he walks, kids on the beach shout: “Kankurang! Kankurang is coming!” 

Part of the cultural heritage of Senegal and Gambia, the Kankurang symbolizes the spirit that provides order and justice, and is considered a protector against evil. 

On this day, this Kankurang is telling the kids about plastic pollution and urging them to respect the environment. 

“Climate change is real, so we have to try to change our way of life, to change our behavior to better adapt to it,” he told them. 

Moudou says some people see him as a crazy, but often those people don’t know the extent of the plastics problem and can change their views when he is given a chance to explain. 

These days, he says his wife and children, who sometimes watch him appear on local television to share his message, understand and respect his work, support he didn’t have in the beginning. 

In 2020, Senegal passed a law that banned some plastic products. But if the mountains of plastic garbage on this beach are any indication, the country is struggling with enforcement. 

Senegal is far from alone. Each year, the world produces a staggering amount of plastics, which sometimes end up clogging waterways, hurting land and sea animals that may ingest the materials and creating myriad eyesores. That pollution is in addition to all the greenhouse gas emissions, the primary cause of global warming, that are the result of producing plastics. And things don’t appear to be moving in the right direction: Global plastic production is expected to more than quadruple by 2050, according to the United Nations Environment Programme and GRID-Arendal in Norway. 

So, as world leaders gather this week in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for the U.N. climate summit known as COP27, Fall hopes his message about plastics resonates. 

“Leaders of Africa need to wake up and work together to fight against this phenomenon,” he said. 
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Heavy rain from the remnants of Hurricane Nicole covered the eastern United States from Georgia to the Canadian border Friday while hundreds of people on a hard-hit stretch of Florida’s coast wondered when, or if, they could return to their homes.

As Nicole’s leftovers pushed northward, forecasters issued multiple tornado warnings in the Carolinas and Virginia, although no touchdowns were reported immediately.

Downgraded to a depression, Nicole could dump as much as 20 centimeters of rain over the Blue Ridge Mountains, forecasters said. Plus, there was a chance of flash and urban flooding as far north as New England.

Wrecks added to the notoriously bad traffic in Atlanta as rain from Nicole fell across the metro area during rush hour, and a few school systems in mountainous north Georgia canceled classes.

The situation was a lot worse in eastern Florida. One roughly 24-kilometer-long area of the coast was severely eroded, with multiple seawalls destroyed. Much of the destruction was blamed on unrepaired seawalls bashed during Ian, which killed more than 130 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

In Wilbur-by-the-Sea, workers tried to stabilize remaining sections of land with rocks and dirt as waves washed over pieces of lumber and concrete blocks that once were part of homes.

Parts of otherwise intact buildings hung over cliffs of sand created by pounding waves that covered the normally wide beach. Dozens of hotel and condominium towers as tall as 22 stories were declared uninhabitable in Daytona Beach Shores and New Smyrna Beach after seawater undercut their foundations. Just six weeks ago, Hurricane Ian caused an initial round of damage that contributed to problems from Nicole.

Retired health care worker Cindy Tyler, who lived in a seven-story condominium tower that was closed because of the storm, had a hard time coping with the idea of never being able to return to her building.

“I think right now I’m just in a state of hanging in there,” said Tyler, who was forced to evacuate with her husband and a few belongings. “I’m not believing I’m not going to be able to get back into my place. I’m trying to be very hopeful and very optimistic.”

Tenants in Tyler’s building spent $240,000 replacing a protective barrier that was battered by Ian, but the new fortification was no match for Nicole.

“Temporary seawall? Mother Nature said, ‘Hold my beer,’ ” she said.

Restoring Daytona Beach — famous for its drivable beach — and surrounding beaches will likely require a major, multimillion-dollar sand renourishment project and improved seawalls to protect property, said Stephen Leatherman, director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research at Florida International University.

“It was known worldwide for driving on the beach,” said Leatherman. “They don’t even have a beach to think about right now.”

Fewer than 15,000 homes and businesses were without power across Florida by late Friday afternoon, down from a high of more than 330,000. No major disruptions were reported up the Eastern Seaboard, according to a tracking website.

The late-season hurricane hit the Bahamas first, the first to do so since Category 5 Hurricane Dorian devastated the archipelago in 2019. For storm-weary Floridians, it was the first November hurricane to hit their shores since 1985 and only the third since record-keeping began in 1853.

Even minimal hurricanes and storms have become more destructive because seas are rising as the planet’s ice melts due to climate change, increasing coastal flooding, said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. “It’s going to happen all across the world,” he said.
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The United States will keep in place the public health emergency status of the coronavirus pandemic, allowing millions of Americans to still receive free tests, vaccines and treatments until at least April of next year, two Biden administration officials said Friday.

The possibility of a winter surge in COVID-19 cases and the need for more time to transition out of the public health emergency (PHE) to a private market were two factors that contributed to the decision not to end the emergency status in January, one of the officials said.

The public health emergency was initially declared in January 2020, when the pandemic began, and has been renewed each quarter since. But in August, the government began signaling it planned to let it expire in January.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has promised to give states 60 days’ notice before letting the emergency expire, which would have been on Friday if it did not plan on renewing it again in January. The agency did not provide such notice, the second official said.

Health experts believe a surge in COVID-19 infections in the United States is likely this winter, one official said.

“We may be in the middle of one in January,” he said. “That is not the moment you want to pull down the public health emergency.”

Hundreds still dying every day

Daily U.S. cases were down to an average of nearly 41,300 as of Wednesday, but an average of 335 people a day are still dying from COVID, according to the latest U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Daily U.S. cases are projected to rise slowly to nearly 70,000 by February, driven by students returning to schools and cold weather-related indoor gatherings, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said in an October 21 analysis. Deaths are forecast to remain at current levels.

Transitioning out of emergency phase

The officials said a lot of work remained to be done for the transition out of the public health emergency.

The government has been paying for COVID vaccines, some tests and certain treatments, as well as other care, under the public health emergency declaration. When the emergency expires, the government will begin to transfer COVID health care to private insurance and government health plans.

Health officials held large meetings with insurers and drugmakers about moving sales and distribution of COVID vaccines and treatments to the private sector in August and October, but none have been publicly announced since.

“The biggest motivation from a policy perspective is ensuring a smooth transition to the commercial market and the challenge of unraveling the multiple protections that have been put in place,” said Dr. Jen Kates, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Extending the PHE provides more time to manage that.”

The biggest challenge is uninsured people, she said. Most Americans have government-backed or private health insurance and are expected to pay nothing for COVID vaccines and boosters, though they will likely incur some out-of-pocket costs for tests and treatments.

Uninsured children will also continue to get free vaccines, but it is unclear how they and some 25 million uninsured adults will avoid paying the full cost of tests and treatments, and how those adults will get vaccines.

Their number is set to grow with the emergency expiring. HHS estimates that as many as 15 million people will lose health coverage after a requirement by Congress that state Medicaid programs keep people continuously enrolled expires and states return to normal patterns for enrollment.
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Beijing closed city parks and imposed other restrictions as the country faces a new wave of COVID-19 cases, even as millions of people remained under lockdown Friday in the west and south of China.

The country reported 10,729 new cases on Friday, almost all of them testing positive while showing no symptoms. More than 5 million people were under lockdown Friday in the southern manufacturing hub Guangzhou and the western megacity Chongqing.

With the bulk of Beijing’s 21 million people undergoing near daily testing, another 118 new cases were recorded in the sprawling city. Many city schools switched to online classes, hospitals restricted services and some shops and restaurants were shuttered, with their staff taken to quarantine. Videos on social media showed people in some areas protesting or fighting with police and health workers.

“It has become normal, just like eating and sleeping,” said food service worker Yang Zheng, 39. “I think what it impacts most is kids because they need to go to school.”

Demands for testing every 24-48 hours are “troublesome,” said Ying Yiyang, who works in marketing.

“My life is for sure not comparable to what it was three years ago,” said Ying. Family visits outside of Beijing can be difficult if the smartphone app that virtually all Chinese are required to display does not green-light travel back to the capital, Ying said.

“I just stay in Beijing,” Ying said.

Numerous villages on the capital’s outskirts that are home to blue-collar workers whose labor keeps the city running were under lockdown. Many live in dormitory communities, which taxi and ride-sharing drivers said they were avoiding so as not to be placed in quarantine themselves.

Lockdowns in Guangzhou and elsewhere were due to end by Sunday, but authorities have repeatedly extended such restrictions with no explanation.

Chinese leaders had promised Thursday to respond to public frustration over its severe “zero-COVID” strategy that has confined millions to their homes and severely disrupted the economy.

The government said Friday it was reducing the amount of time incoming passengers would be required to undergo quarantine. The U.S. embassy this week renewed its advisement for citizens to avoid travel to and within China unless absolutely necessary.

Incoming passengers will only be quarantined for five days, rather than the previous seven, at a designated location, followed by three days of isolation at their place of residence, according to a notice from the State Council, China’s Cabinet.

It wasn’t immediately clear when and where the rules would take effect and whether they would apply to foreigners and Chinese citizens alike.

Relaxed standards would also be applied to foreign businesspeople and athletes, in what appeared to be a gradual move toward normalization.

Airlines will no longer be threatened with a two-week-long suspension of flights if five or more passengers tested positive, the regulations said, potentially providing a major expansion of seats on such flights that have shrunk in numbers and soared in price since restrictions were imposed in 2020.

Those flying to China will only need to show a single negative test for the virus within 48 hours of traveling, the rules said. Formerly, two tests within that time period were required.

“Zero-COVID” has kept China’s infection rate relatively low but weighs on the economy and has disrupted life by shutting schools, factories and shops, or sealing neighborhoods without warning. With the new surge in cases, a growing number of areas are shutting down businesses and imposing curbs on movement. In order to enter office buildings, shopping malls and other public places, people are required to show a negative result from a virus test taken as often as once a day.

With economic growth weakening again after rebounding to 3.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, forecasters had been expecting bolder steps toward reopening the country, whose borders remain largely closed.

President and ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping is expected to make a rare trip abroad next week, but has given little indication of backing off on a policy the party has closely associated with social stability and the avowed superiority of his policies.

That has been maintained by its seven-person Politburo Standing Committee, which was named in October at a party congress that also expanded Xi’s political dominance by appointing him to a third five-year term as leader. It is packed with his loyalists, including the former party chief of Shanghai, who enforced a draconian lockdown that sparked food shortages, shut factories and confined millions to their homes for two months or more.

People from cities with a single case in the past week are barred from visiting Beijing, while travelers from abroad are required to be quarantined in a hotel for seven to 10 days — if they are able to navigate the timely and opaque process of acquiring a visa.

Business groups say that discourages foreign executives from visiting, which has prompted companies to shift investment plans to other countries. Visits from U.S. officials and lawmakers charged with maintaining the crucial trading relations amid tensions over tariffs, Taiwan and human rights have come to a virtual standstill.

Last week, access to part of the central city of Zhengzhou, home to the world’s biggest iPhone factory, was suspended after residents tested positive for the virus. Thousands of workers jumped fences and hiked along highways to escape the factory run by Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group. Many said coworkers who fell ill received no help and working conditions were unsafe.

Also last week, people posted outraged comments on social media after a 3-year-old boy, whose compound in the northwest was under quarantine, died of carbon monoxide poisoning. His father complained that guards who were enforcing the closure refused to help and tried to stop him as he rushed his son to a hospital.

Despite such complaints, Chinese citizens have little say in policy making under the one-party authoritarian system that maintains rigid controls over media and public demonstrations.

Speculation on when measures will be eased has centered on whether the government is willing to import or domestically produce more effective vaccines, with the elderly population left particularly vulnerable.

That could come as soon as next spring, when a new slate of officials are due to be named under Xi’s continuing leadership. Or, restrictions could persist much longer if the government continues to reject the notion of living to learn with a relatively low level of cases that cause far fewer hospitalizations and deaths than when the pandemic was at its height.
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President Joe Biden is headed to Egypt for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), where he will discuss US climate crisis strategies. But environmental campaigners say wealthy nations need to focus on meeting their $100 billion pledge to cover climate change losses. Anita Powell reports.
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The moon gave us a show we won’t again see for another three years. Plus, the U.K. is set for its first satellite launch, and NASA’s Artemis program is poised for another try. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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People who have had COVID-19 more than once are two or three times more likely to have a range of serious health problems than those who have only had it once, the first major study on the subject said Thursday.

Multiple infections have surged as the pandemic rumbles on and the virus mutates into new strains, but the long-term health effects of reinfection have not been clear.

The U.S. researchers said their new study published in the Nature Medicine journal was the first to look at how reinfection increases the risk of health problems from acute cases as well as long COVID.

The researchers analyzed the anonymous medical records of 5.8 million people in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ national health care database.

More than 443,000 had tested positive for COVID-19 at least once between March 1, 2020, and April this year.

Nearly 41,000 of that group had COVID more than once. More than 93% had a total of two infections, while 6% had three, and nearly 1% had four.

The other 5.3 million never contracted COVID-19.

When the researchers compared the health outcomes of the different groups, they found that “people who got reinfected have an increased risk of all sorts of adverse health problems,” Ziyad Al-Aly, an epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis and the study’s senior author, told AFP.

People with repeat infections were twice as likely to die prematurely and three times more likely to be hospitalized with illness than those who had not been reinfected, the study found.

Heart and lung problems were more than three times more common for people who had been reinfected.

Reinfection also contributes to brain conditions, kidney disease and diabetes, the study said.

And the risk of such problems could increase with each infection, it suggested.

Al-Aly warned that this means that continuous reinfections “would likely elevate the burden of disease in the population.”

Epidemiologist recommends masks

Ahead of a feared COVID-19 spike during the holiday season, he called on people to wear masks to protect themselves.

He also urged authorities to do more to stop the disease from circulating.

“The reason reinfection is happening is that our current vaccine strategy does not block transmission,” he said.

“I think reinfections will continue to happen until we have vaccines that block transmission, offer more durable protection, and are variant proof,” he said.

‘Worrisome’ findings

The authors said the limitations of the study included that most of the veteran participants were older white males.

When the study was released as a preprint in June, U.S. expert Eric Topol described the findings as “worrisome.”

In a Substack post, Topol pointed out that reinfections became “much more common” after April — when the study’s timeframe ended — because of new, more transmissible omicron variants.
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China Wednesday said it would not pay into a climate loss and damage fund for developing nations, after small island nations cited its responsibility as a high carbon emitter at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt, COP27.

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, on behalf of the Association of Small Island States, Tuesday called for major greenhouse gas emitters China and India to chip in for a fund to compensate poor countries for the consequences of climate change.

It was the first time developing nations have included China and India among countries financially accountable for emissions.

Beijing would support such a mechanism, but would not pay cash into the loss and damage fund, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said Wednesday.

Xie added that China does is not obliged to contribute but reiterated the country’s alignment with developing nations in seeking such fund from developed countries.

Despite being the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter China has long been categorized as a developing nation and is put into the same group with developing countries at COP for climate discussions.

Developing countries have long urged wealthier nations to deliver on promises of $100 billion a year for climate mitigation and adaptation, but rich nations were found to fall short on that pledge, according to an OECD report.

The pressure from developing nations for China to pay for loss and damage reflects a “diluted view” of the argument that historic emitters should pay the most, according to Scott Moore, director of China programs and strategic initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania specializing in environmental sustainability and international relations.

“There is a lot of legitimacy to the historic emissions argument. On the other hand, China, in particular, its emissions growth really just in the last 20, 25 years has been so enormous that its emissions are kind of starting to veer into a territory where you can argue that China is actually responsible for a significant share of cumulative emissions,” Moore told VOA by video call.

Historically, China has contributed to about 13% of the world’s carbon emissions since the start of the industrial revolution, while the United States and the EU account for over 20% each. China, along with the United States, was found to release more carbon than their share of world population – China has 19% of the world’s population, but has produced over one-fourth of the world’s carbon emissions.

China’s shifting role

During COP26, last year’s U.N. climate change conference, in Glasgow, Scotland, China and other developing nations sought $1.3 trillion per year from wealthier nations starting 2030. A report from high-level experts at the United Nations, published this month, said by 2030, $2.4 trillion a year would be but only for developing countries “other than China.” The report also said China, along with Western Europe and North America, has dominated the world’s climate finance.

Beijing has been slowly shifting its role to being a donor country, according to Gørild Merethe Heggelund, research professor at Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo, who focuses on China’s climate change policies.

“China was a recipient of climate finance for years, but China has now become a donor country. Their role as an aid country is becoming stronger and becoming clearer as it goes on and getting more experience,” Heggelund told VOA via a video call.

At COP21 in 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping established the $3.1 billion South-South Climate Cooperation Fund in a move scientists called “significant,” as it was one of the largest single pledges from developing countries to support climate action. In June this year, Xi injected another $1 billion in the fund that is now named “he Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund.

The addition is part of Xi’s new 2021 Global Development Initiative, which aims to fund projects in the Global South to boost sustainable development and capacity building. In September, officials said over 1,000 programs are planned under the GDI.

Piqued by internal challenges and geopolitics

China is likely to focus more on domestic mitigation efforts than international contributions, Heggelund said.

“China is highly vulnerable to climate change and we’ve seen some of the droughts this summer. They have some challenges at home that they need to address and that they are addressing. I think we can see a little bit of a difference between what China is doing on the global scene and the negotiations, and what they are doing domestically,” he said.

Despite a 3.9% economic growth in this year’s third quarter, China is expected to have a bumpy road to recovery over its continued COVID-19 lockdown curbs, a global recession and a sluggish property market.

Geopolitics will also inevitably play a role in climate negotiations for China, Moore said. “I think for a long time we had sort of hoped and thought that climate change could be kind of special.”

The United States and China joined hands at COP26 for climate cooperation talks amid political tensions. Part of that agreement included discussions about “scaling up of financial and capacity-building support for adaptation in developing countries.”

However, China suspended the bilateral cooperation in August, following U.S. House or Represenatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Beijing said such climate talks “cannot be separated from the broad climate of bilateral ties.” The two sides held unofficial talks at COP27, but have not confirmed whether they would resume climate cooperation.

“We will see climate change and climate action defined by as much by these geopolitical tensions and issues as anything else,” said Moore.

Published with support of Climate Tracker’s Climate Justice Fellowship
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U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Wednesday announced the creation of a carbon offset plan meant to help developing countries speed their transition away from fossil fuels.

Kerry launched the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA) with the intention of funding renewable energy projects and accelerating clean energy transitions in developing countries.

The United States will develop the program with the Bezos Earth Fund and Rockefeller Foundation, with input from the public and private sectors which would operate through 2030 and possibly be extended to 2035.

Kerry said Chile and Nigeria were among the developing countries to have shown early interest in the ETA, and that Bank of America, Microsoft, PepsiCo and Standard Chartered Bank had voiced interest in “informing the ETA’s development”.

“Our intention is to put the carbon market to work to deploy capital to speed the transition from dirty to clean power specifically, to retire unabated coal-fired power and accelerate the buildout of renewables,” he said at the event launch on Wednesday. Kerry added that the carbon credits used in the program would be “high quality” and meet “strong safeguards”.

The U.S. climate envoy acknowledged widespread criticism of voluntary carbon offset schemes raised by environmental groups and a task force created by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, which on Tuesday recommended that carbon credits be used sparingly by companies and governments to avoiding undermining their net-zero emission plans.

Kerry said Guterres was supportive of the U.S.-led carbon market initiative provided there were safeguards to it.

The two had met earlier on Wednesday at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

Environmental groups panned the initiative, saying that the scheme would delay real efforts to slash emissions.

“A voluntary carbon credit program won’t guarantee deep, real cuts in emissions – it’s tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs as the climate ship is going down,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

At the event launch, a protester interrupted Kerry saying: “You’re providing false solutions.”

Kerry responded that fossil fuel companies would not participate in the program.
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Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.

The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that hired rapidly during the pandemic.

Zuckerberg as well said that he had made the decision to hire aggressively, anticipating rapid growth even after the pandemic ended.

“Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Zuckerberg said in a prepared statement. “Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”

Meta, like other social media companies, enjoyed a financial boost during the pandemic lockdown era because more people stayed home and scrolled on their phones and computers. But as the lockdowns ended and people started going outside again, revenue growth began to falter.

An economic slowdown and a grim outlook for online advertising — by far Meta’s biggest revenue source — have contributed to Meta’s woes. This summer, Meta posted its first quarterly revenue decline in history, followed by another, bigger decline in the fall.

Some of the pain is company-specific, while some is tied to broader economic and technological forces.

Last week, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees, part of a chaotic overhaul as Musk took the helm. He tweeted that there was no choice but to cut the jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day,” though did not provide details about the losses.

Meta has worried investors by pouring over $10 billion a year into the “metaverse” as it shifts its focus away from social media. Zuckerberg predicts the metaverse, an immersive digital universe, will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people use technology.

Meta and its advertisers are bracing for a potential recession. There’s also the challenge of Apple’s privacy tools, which make it more difficult for social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snap to track people without their consent and target ads to them.

Competition from TikTok is also an a growing threat as younger people flock to the video sharing app over Instagram, which Meta also owns.

“We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint,” Zuckerberg said. ”We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.”

Zuckerberg told employees Wednesday that they will receive an email letting them know if they are among those being let go.
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NASA again rescheduled its long-delayed uncrewed mission to the Moon on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Nicole churned toward the east coast of Florida, officials said.

A launch attempt, which had been scheduled for November 14, will now take place on November 16, Jim Free, a senior official at the U.S. space agency, said on Twitter.

It is the third delay of the highly anticipated launch in as many months.

“Our people are the most important aspect of our mission,” wrote Free, who is NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development. “Adjusting our target launch date for #Artemis I prioritizes employee safety and allows our team to tend to the needs of their families and homes.”

The Atlantic Ocean storm was expected to develop into a hurricane Wednesday near the Bahamas, before making landfall in Florida either later that evening or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said.

A hurricane warning has been issued near the Kennedy Space Center, where the rocket — NASA’s most powerful ever — is to blast off.

With Nicole gaining strength, “NASA … has decided to retarget a launch for the Artemis I mission for Wednesday, November 16, pending safe conditions for employees to return to work, as well as inspections after the storm has passed,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday evening.

NASA added that a launch occurring during a two-hour window that opens at 1:04 a.m. EST (0604 GMT) on November 16 would result in a splashdown on Friday, December 11.

A back-up launch date has been set for November 19.

NASA said it would leave the 98-meter SLS rocket on the launch pad, where it had been placed several days before.

After two launch attempts were scrubbed this summer because of technical problems, the rocket had to be returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building to protect it from Hurricane Ian.

Earlier Tuesday, Nicole was packing sustained winds near 100 kilometers per hour with higher gusts and was expected to strengthen even further, according to the NHC.

Some experts have voiced concern that the rocket, which is estimated to cost several billion dollars, could be damaged by debris from the hurricane if it remains exposed.

The SLS rocket is designed to withstand 136 kph winds at the 18-meter level, NASA said. It is designed to also withstand heavy rains at the launch pad and the spacecraft hatches have been secured to prevent water intrusion.

The uncrewed mission, dubbed Artemis 1, will bring the United States a step closer to returning astronauts to the Moon five decades after humans last walked on the lunar surface.

The goal of Artemis 1, named after the twin sister of Apollo, is to test the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule that sits on top.

Mannequins are standing in for astronauts on the mission and will record acceleration, vibration, and radiation levels.
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The Horn of Africa’s record drought has dried up wide areas of land and vegetation, left millions of livestock dead and threatened the survival of both wildlife and people. In Kenya, to reduce the impact of drought, a Dutch conservation group is helping ethnic Maasai to restore parched lands through rainwater harvesting. But with a failed rainy season forecast for the fifth time in a row, some are asking whether conservation efforts will be enough. Reporter Juma Majanga has more from Amboseli Kenya. Videographer: Juma Majanga
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The Ugandan government says it will end the school year earlier than planned because of an Ebola outbreak that has affected 23 students, including eight children who died.

Millions of Ugandan students in primary and secondary schools will be affected by the decision to end the semester two weeks early, due to the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak.

Joyce Moriku Kaducu, the state minister for education, announced the closure on Tuesday.

“Pre-primary, primary and secondary schools will close for Term 3 holidays on Friday, 25th November 2022,” Kaducu said.

According to the Ministry of Education, Ebola cases were found at five schools in the Kampala, Wakiso and Mubende districts.    

Kaducu said the Cabinet of President Yoweri Museveni made the decision to close schools nationwide based on concerns that crowded schools will increase infection rates for the virus. 

The schools with affected children have been cordoned off and are being asked to decontaminate their facilities so children can safely return after the new year.

The decision to end the school term early is a disappointment to many families.  Ugandan schools were closed for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic before reopening earlier this year.
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Better catch the moon’s disappearing act Tuesday — there won’t be another like it for three years.

The total lunar eclipse will be visible throughout North America in the predawn hours — the farther west, the better — and across Asia, Australia and the rest of the Pacific after sunset. As an extra treat, Uranus will be visible just a finger’s width above the moon, resembling a bright star.

Totality will last nearly 1 1/2 hours — from 5:16 a.m. to 6:42 a.m. EST — as Earth passes directly between the moon and sun.

Known as a blood moon, it will appear a reddish orange from the light of Earth’s sunsets and sunrises. At the peak of the eclipse, the moon will be 390,653 kilometers away, according to NASA scientists. Binoculars and telescopes will enhance viewing, provided the skies are clear.

South America will get a glimpse of Tuesday’s lunar eclipse, weather permitting. Striking out altogether, Africa, the Middle East and most of Europe will have to wait until 2025.

Among those providing a livestream of Tuesday’s lunar extravaganza: Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and the Italian-based Virtual Telescope Project.

It’s the second total lunar eclipse this year; the first was in May. The next one won’t be until 2025. Plenty of partial lunar eclipses will be available in the meantime.
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